A Community Cooperating for Peace

The importance of peace within a community cannot be overstated. Without neighborly peace, life is unbearable. People move from neighborhoods, communities, states and countries when violence is an epidemic to their locale. We inherently know that people must care for one another and respect their neighbors treating each other fairly. This is the basis of God's laws to Israel. In Deuteronomy 21, the whole community was to be involved in working and contributing to the maintenance of peace. We learn this through a strange sacramental practice concerning an unsolved murder within the land.

Deuteronomy 21:1–4 (ESV) “If in the land that the LORD your God is giving you to possess someone is found slain, lying in the open country, and it is not known who killed him, 2 then your elders and your judges shall come out, and they shall measure the distance to the surrounding cities. 3 And the elders of the city that is nearest to the slain man shall take a heifer that has never been worked and that has not pulled in a yoke. 4 And the elders of that city shall bring the heifer down to a valley with running water, which is neither plowed nor sown, and shall break the heifer’s neck there in the valley.

The ritual for an unsolved murder case would involve the whole city nearest to the victim. How interesting that detectives to this day speak of beginning an investigation with those closes to the victim and working their way out. The Bible is always spot on!

The cost of a heifer was substantial to any city. The elders coordinating its sacrifice would have taken great effort and the who practice would have attracted great attention. Notice the heifer was one that had never been worked. In other words this was a potential contributor to the life and activity of that community. God is showing them through practical application a hugely important truth: Humans are valuable contributors to the life and activity of your community. Israel was never to look upon the dead as a non issue. Every person mattered to who they were. Every person contributed and to lose one of them was to lose potential for your town.

This is an important lesson for Christians that we need to practice spiritually. You cannot and you must not serve God in isolated private faith. God has called us to community! We are not a group of individual persons but a collective people belonging to our God. I'm all for private faith practices such as devotions which include Bible reading and prayer. But there is a need for corporate interaction and contribution to the life of faith. Every Christian matters in the life of a church. We do not simply brush off the loss of community. To do so brings great grief to the heart of our Father.

The rest of the practice concerning the heifer included the priests coming to observe and make atonement officially for the elders of that city. This was an important picture for the ancient people to see. They would learn through visual aid that even the elders of that city were subject to God's chosen priest. Accountability concerning civil matters was visible and evident to the young and old. God was observing them, they had to live like it. 

Consider what would happen to any country, town or neighborhood when its civic leaders live under the rule of God. If there is one thing history has proven time and again, it is that atheistic governments DESTROY peace and demean human existence (see North Korea currently). Accountability to God for our leaders is essential.

Deuteronomy 21:8 (ESV) Accept atonement, O LORD, for your people Israel, whom you have redeemed, and do not set the guilt of innocent blood in the midst of your people Israel, so that their blood guilt be atoned for.’

Innocent blood was a community matter. This is what God is teaching. We are our brother's and sister's keepers. So much of today's Christianity is about our individual dreams, life goals and ambitions. We even see Christians who become "celebrities" in our world as the epitome of Christian faith. NOTHING could be further from God's Word. Together the Church rises and together the Church struggles. We are accountable to one another and to God. And in the strangest place here in Deuteronomy, we learn these very important truths: Community PEACE requires effort, adds value to our neighborhood and requires accountability to God.